Chocolate maker! Hmm... Eating chocolates has always been a delight, but, will meeting the person who makes them be as enticing?
Bliss Chocolate invited Elaine Young, a consultant pastry chef from Australia as their consulting chef, to design a new range of chocolates and desserts.
Bliss greets us with the aroma of chocolates, while our eyes feast on tiny, bright-red heart-shaped chocolates, yellow ones shaped like nuts and those filled with fruits.
“I have created new flavours by marrying the French and Belgian techniques of chocolate making with the beautiful flavours of India,” Elaine declares.
To draw inspirations and understand the Indianess, Elaine says she took off on a trip across the city visiting local shops, hotels and vendors. Now she claims she has infused her chocolates with masala curry powder, cashew nuts, and even garam masala!
Elaine adds that her pastry skills were honed when she worked with the hospitality industry in Australia.
“I’m from the Philippines and work in Melbourne. Coming from a family of business people, becoming a chef was not an option for me,” says the chef, who studied business and got into marketing before she decided to give cooking a shot.
Though she was into making wedding cakes, “chocolate was a medium that instilled fear in me. It’s a challenging medium. Everything – from the atmosphere to temperature -- affects it. I worked for a French-based chocolate company, where I learnt the best in chocolate making and now making chocolates is a breeze.”
“I first determine the characteristic of the chocolate and create flavours and bars using the local flavours. Here I have used flavours of paan and coconut, chillies and so on,” beams Elain.
According to her creativity does not happen with a “snap of your finger. You cannot force it”, so she takes time off to travel to get inspired by the cultures and flavours of the world to innovate.”
About the health factor, Elaine states, “Chocolate is high in anti-oxidants but the bar we eat also has sugar. Lesser the sugar the better. It may not taste good on your palate when ideally it should be 80 per cent cocoa and 20 per cent sugar. I wonder how many can take that. That is why we have to add sugar.”
To be a “good chocolate maker, you have to eat them too,” beams Elains.
“I have a client who complained his chocolates were not selling. I asked him what he thought about his product. I was surprised when he said ‘I don’t know as I don’t eat sweets. If you can’t enjoy what you create, then how do you expect others to do so?” asks Elaine.
For more you log on to blisschocolates.in/
